A Johnson has his Boswell and every Sticks Angelica has her Michael
DeForge
Sticks Angelica is, in her own words, "49 years old. Former: Olympian,
poet, scholar, sculptor, minister, activist, Governor General,
entrepreneur, line cook, headmistress, Mountie, columnist, libertarian,
cellist." After a high-profile family scandal, Sticks escapes to the
woods to live in what would be relative isolation were it not for the
many animals that surround and inevitably annoy her. Sticks is an
arrogant self-obsessed force who wills herself on the flora and fauna.
There is a rabbit named Oatmeal who harbors an unrequited love for her,
a pair of kissing geese, a cross-dressing moose absurdly named Lisa
Hanawalt. When a reporter named, ahem, Michael DeForge shows up to
interview Sticks for his biography on her, she quickly slugs him and
buries him up to his neck, immobilizing him. Instead, Sticks narrates
her way through the forest, recalling formative incidents from her
storied past in what becomes a strange sort of autobiography.
Deforge's witty dialogue and deadpan narration create a bizarre, yet
eerily familiar world. Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero plays with
autobiography, biography, and hagiography to look at how we build our
own sense of self and how others carry on the roles we create for them
in our own personal dramas.
